India to invest $100 Billion for renewable energy in next five years

With a
view to achieving “electricity for all by 2019,” the government has set an
ambitious target of attracting 15 Lacs crore ($250 billion) investment in the
power sector in the next 4-5 years, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.The investments as envisaged would help sectors
like power generation, coal mining, electricity distribution and transmission. This would also help the government increase power generation and ensure
electricity to every household by 2019, Goyal said in his address at the India
Economic Summit, organized by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum and Indian
industry chamber CII. Renewable or clean energy is among the thrust areas in the
power sector. Goyal said the government was keen to increase its generation
capacity in the renewable sector to 1,00,000 MW by 2022 from a paltry 31,833.01
MW installed capacity now.

The
minister had earlier said domestic solar equipment manufacturing capacity of
700-800 MW is not sufficient to meet the government's ambitious plans of adding
more power generation capacity through renewable energy sources. The country's
current installed solar capacity exceeds 2,600 MW. Earlier in May, the Ministry
of Commerce under the UPA regime had recommended imposing a restrictive duty in
the range of $0.11-0.81 per watt on solar cells imported from the US, China,
Malaysia and Chinese Taipei in a move to protect the struggling domestic
industry. The recommendations were against the backdrop of US dragging India to
the WTO (World Trade Organization) with respect to domestic sourcing norms for
the national solar mission.

The
Indian government is hoping to get significant foreign investment into the
renewable energy sector, and the power sector as a whole. The Ministry of New
and Renewable Energy (MNRE) will organize India’s first global renewable energy
investors summit in February next year. The government hopes to secure
investment worth billions of dollars from international companies during the
summit.“We are expecting around $250 billion investments in the next four to
five years... About $100 billion will be in the renewable energy,” he said.As
fuel linkages have been a major stumbling block for augmentation of power
generation, Goyal said efforts are on to augment fuel supply to achieve the
target. Coal India is expected to double its production to around one billion
tonnes by 2019, he said.

“Efforts
are also being made to increase coal production, strengthen transmission network
and get back gas-based power plants on stream.”“India's total power consumption
would double to 2 trillion units by 2019 and majority of investments would come
from the private sector although the government would also invest more.“The
country's power transmission sector alone is hoping for investment of around
$50 billion during this period,” he said adding efforts are also on to improve
the bankability of power projects.

The thorny issues power sector is facing
include getting clearances, poor financial health of discoms, coal and gas
shortages. In the renewable space, the government expects to nearly double the
installed wind generation capacity to more than 40,000 MW by 2019, Goyal said,
adding that the government is pursuing the strategy of improving the utilization
of existing assets and freeing up stranded assets.